418 OPERATIONS SUBSIDIARY TO INDUCTION. 



misuse grow in generality, until the instructed are obliged to acquiesce; 

 and to employ those words (first freeing them from vagueness by giv- 

 ing them a definite connotation) as generic terms, subdividing the gen- 

 era into species. 



§ 4. While the more rapid growth of ideas than of names thus creates 

 a perpetual necessity for making the same names serve, even if imper- 

 fectly, on a greater number of occasions ; a counter-operation is going 

 on, by which names become on the contrary restricted to fewer occa- 

 sions, by taking on, as it were, additional connotation, from circum- 

 stances not originally included in the meaning, but which have become 

 connected with it in the mind by some accidental cause. We have 

 seen above, in the words pagan and villain, remarkable examples of the 

 specialization of the meaning of words from casual associations, as well 

 as of the generalization of it in a new direction, which often follows. 



Similar specializations are of frequent occurrence in the history even 

 of scientific nomenclature. " It is by no means uncommon," says Dr. 

 Paris, in his Pharmacologia,* " to find a word which is used to express 

 general characters subsequently become the name of a specific sub- 

 stance in which such characters are predominant ; and we shall find 

 that some important anomalies in nomenclature may be thus explained. 

 The term Apaevmov, from which the word Arsenic is derived, was an 

 ancient epithet applied to those natural substances which possessed 

 strong and acrimonious properties, and as the poisonous quality of 

 arsenic was found to be remarkably powerful, the term was especially 

 applied to Orpiment, the form in which this metal most usually occur- 

 I'ed. So the term Verhena (quasi IIerbc7ia) originally denoted all 

 those herbs that were held sacred on account of their being employed 

 in the rites of sacrifice, as we learn from the poets ; but as one herb 

 was usually adopted upon these occasions, the word Verbena came to 

 denote that particular herb onli/, and it is transmitted to us to this day 

 under the same title, viz. Verbena or Vervain, and indeed luitil lately 

 it enjoyed the medical reputation vvhich its sacred origin conferred 

 upon it, for it was worn suspended around the neck as an amulet. 

 Vitriol, in the original application of the word, denoted any crystaline 

 body with a certain degree of transparency {vitrum) ; it is hardly 

 necessary to observe that the term is now appropriated to a particular 

 species : in the same manner, Bark, which is a general teiTn, is applied 

 to express one genus, and by way of eminence, it has the article The 

 prefixed, as The bark : the same observation will apply to the word 

 Opium, which, in its primitive sense, signifies any juice (otto^, Succus), 

 while it now only denotes one species, viz. that of the poppy. So, 

 again, Elaterium was used by Hippocrates to signify various internal 

 applications, especially purgatives, of a violent and drastic nature 

 (from the word EAaux'w, agito, moveo, stimulo), but by succeeding 

 authors it was exclusively applied to denote the active matter which 

 subsides from the juice of the wild cutumber. The word Fecula, 

 again, originally meant to imply any substance which was derived by 

 spontaneous subsidence from a Hquid (from fa;x, the grounds or 

 settlement of a7iy liquor) ; afterwards it was applied to Starch, which 

 is deposited in this manner by agitating the flour of wheat in water ; 



* Historical Introduction, vol. i., pp. 66-8. 



